


i've got an eye for danger (run, baby, run; it's coming much too close)

by mouseymightymarvellous



Series: run baby run [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Darcy "Fearless" Lewis, Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7847071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouseymightymarvellous/pseuds/mouseymightymarvellous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Darcy Lewis leaves Jane's quest to save the world with SCIENCE!, joins another quest to save the world through volunteering, and then (mostly accidentally) ends up on another quest to save the world by burning Hydra to the ground. (This is not how she meant to end up using her poly sci degree.)</p><p>aka the ficlette that started off as a "hahaha, wouldn't it be funny if Dinsintegrating-Programming!Bucky ran into Left-Jane-to-Tour-Europe!Darcy and they went on a wonderful and bizarre adventure to destroy Hydra together?" discussion after watching CA:WS but then somehow turned into way more fic than I was anticipating</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've got an eye for danger (run, baby, run; it's coming much too close)

**Author's Note:**

> This is cross-posted from [my tumblr](http://mouseymightymarvellous.tumblr.com/post/133595917384/ive-got-an-eye-for-danger-run-baby-run-its) at the request of a couple of readers.

Darcy sees Jane through the Convergence and back into Thor’s arms. Sees her friend rocket from crackpot joke to foremost expert. Sees her safely ensconced under the Stark Industries sheltering wing with assistants who can support her work, HR staff to promote it and more than enough money to fund it.

But then she has to leave, she can’t keep following Jane around for the rest of her life, not when Jane no longer needs Darcy to trick her into eating or to force her to sleep or to collate data or to proofread grant applications. She can't keep using Jane as an excuse for avoiding the real world and all its expectations. Because, look, okay: Darcy is like most of her generation in that the idea of graduating and making her way in the world? More than terrifying when she considers the mountain of student loans and the crappy job market awaiting her.

“You tazed a god and helped save the world,” she tells herself. “You can figure your life out.”

Darcy sees Jane safe and successful, and then heads out into the wide world to finally use that poly sci degree her six science credits got her.

One day when heartsore from the rejection and the condescension and the goddamn assholes who won’t look up from her chest to even glance at her resume, she breaks down and cries in her crappy little shoebox apartment. Then she treats herself to her feel good tags and ignores the real world and pretends like she doesn’t have to at least try to be an adult-like person.

And then, trawling through an indi news site, Darcy finds this group of idealistic kids her age, of all genders and sexualities and religions and races and countries who travel place to place helping out at disaster sites. And they’re EMTs and artists and engineers and hackers and accountants and poets and everything in between. The one thing they all have in common is they’ve all transitioned to adulthood during a time of heroes and they've all decided that a person doesn’t need superpowers and a cape to help save the world.

“How can we help?” they ask. And then they show up to bring food or build shelters or distribute medicine or teach sex ed or just listen.

Darcy has seen a lot of disaster, worked to outrace calamity and stood in its aftermath, and she thinks “I could do that”.

So she says "fuck it" to the rejection and the condescension, and she joins this group, bringing her smart mouth and her steady hands and her need to care for people with her.

And she meets all sorts of people travelling the world, helping where they can. Shouts down public officials getting in her way and liaisons with NGOs too caught up in top down policy to actually do anything and listens to strangers pour out their grief and their determination in the face of loss.

There’s this guy, she thinks his name might be James, who follows them around. He’s real quiet and real sad, good with the heavy lifting and the silent intimidation, and he sometimes disappears for days only to show up bruised and ash-stained. But no one asks questions, they just hand him a water bottle or a blanket or a small smile.

Darcy likes to try to make James laugh. She’s not usually successful, but sometimes she swears he’s hiding a grin when she looks away.

One day, the group is working somewhere really sketchy. Everyone is on edge, but the neighbourhood they’re in was hard hit by the dam collapsing and in desperate need of clean water and food. But then the men with guns show up.

Valentina - who’s leading this mission - gets in the leader’s face as he demands their valuables, their supplies; five feet, two inches of rage shouting about how they are not going to hand over desperately needed supplies. The man moves to hit her, but doesn’t get the chance. James stops him with one gloved hand around his wrist.

And then he does a lot more stopping, nothing but the lethal precision of his body against a couple dozen guns. It would be like watching art in motion if it weren’t so terrifying.

When the fight stills, and only James is left standing, everyone emerges from their hiding places, pulling up the civilians they’ve been sheltering. For a moment, there is nothing of James in the blank-faced and bloodied stranger not even breathing hard amidst the bodies, but then that cold shell cracks, leaving a wild eyed, terrified man a breath away from bolting.

“James,” Darcy says. “James, look at me. It’s alright. We’re all safe. Valentina isn’t hurt. No one’s hurt. It’s alright. You stopped them. You saved us.”

He swings around to look at her feet, flinching, as if she could hurt him with only her voice. “I,” he stumbles, “I have to go.”

“No,” Darcy assures him, “You don’t. You can stay.”

He shakes. “They’ll find me.”

“Who?”

“They’ll find me and hurt you all to get me.” He’s outright shuddering now.

Darcy doesn’t look away, keeps trying to catch his gaze. “James, we want you to be safe. How can we help keep you safe?”

And, finally, he looks right at her, blue eyes striking like lightning. “I have to leave.”

Darcy pauses, considering. She’s insane. That’s the only reasonable explanation for the words that come out of her mouth. But she once drove into a storm chasing data only to find a god. And she once lingered in the path of an alien cyberpunk!Balrog to evacuate a pet store. And she once ran through a convergence of time and space to help save the Nine Realms. So she probably already knew that. “Then I’m coming with you.”

James starts, shakes his head no.

“Yes,” she tells him. “I’m coming with you. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“You let us know if you need help,” Valentina orders him. “Anyone comes looking for you, we’ll send them the wrong way. You need supplies, we’ll find someone to get them to you. You need an identity? We’ve got people for that.”

He’s shaking again, mouthing no, no, no.

“Yes,” Darcy says. “I’m not letting you do this alone.”

She barely knows this man; knows only the bruises under his eyes from too little sleep and too many demons, knows the shape of his small grin, knows the steadiness of his hands as he shifts rubble, knows his awkward kindness to children and small animals, knows his rare clever quip.

Darcy once followed a small scientist around the globe because the woman couldn’t look away from the stars long enough to look after herself. Darcy once left job prospects behind to help strangers in the wake of the damage left by warring titans. Darcy can walk beside this man on whatever path he’s treading.

He won’t walk it alone. She refuses to let him.

Darcy walks up to James, careful and slow. When she’s close enough, she grabs his gloved hands, smiles her best smile, and whispers. “Run!”


End file.
